Welcome Address from the Co-Presidents of the IGA

To all members of the Gothic Studies community, we are honored and thrilled to have been elected co-presidents of the International Gothic Association. Honoured because this association has received global recognition over the last two decades, increasing its visibility and influence not just in Western Europe and North America but also in Central and South America, Asia and Australasia. Thrilled because we have an opportunity to take the IGA from strength to strength by further promoting and celebrating international research on Gothic.

The strength of the IGA owes a great deal to Professor Jason Haslam (IGA co-president 2017-2019) who handled his presidential duties with diligence, leadership and good humour. Jason was integral to the smooth transition of our journal Gothic Studies to its new home at EUP; he also set up the listserv and enhanced communication through social media platforms; and, among many other things, he supported the first IGA conference in the United States.

Our co-presidency marks an exciting time for the IGA. In 2021, we will be holding the first IGA conference in Dublin, and in 2023 we will return to the wonderful city of Halifax. We look forward to supporting the local organizers and making these conferences great successes.

We are also excited to continue a co-presidency that straddles two continents: Karen in Canada, Justin in Scotland. The continuation of this transatlantic co-presidency reflects the international commitment of the IGA. We embrace this commitment and, as the new co-presidents, we will seek to increase the global networks of Gothic Studies to enable academics from diverse backgrounds working on Gothic to interact, collaborate and exchange ideas. We look forward to working with you to achieve these goals.

Moving forward, we hope to add to our avenues of communication. Our website will still be the central hub for all things IGA and Gothic, and if you have relevant information to post on our blog (calls for papers, job ads, Gothic events, and so on), please send it along; our web expert, Mary Going, is always happy to have new content.

And so where we began this post by looking back, we end it by looking forward: in the coming weeks we will be issuing a few calls: First we will be asking for volunteers to fill open positions for two graduate student representatives. (A call will be posted on the website very soon.) Second, we are asking those interested to submit proposals to host our 2025 and 2027 biennial conferences: we know, that seems like the far future, but it will sneak up on us! So if you are interested, then please let us know. With that, we will sign off. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. And, of course, if you are not yet a member of the IGA, or if it’s time to renew, please do so by visiting this page: http://www.internationalgothic.group.shef.ac.uk/join-the-iga/ .